I saw this last night with 6 other people. All six loved it, but they were all Neil Diamond fans. I am not particularly, although I like a lot of his music. The theatre was only about 60% filled, whereas the last summertime tryout I saw at the Colonial -- an incredibly beautiful theatre -- was jammed. I do not know whether this is due to ridiculous prices or lack of interest in a musical about Neil Diamond.
My opinion: it is a terrible musical, partially redeemed by three things: Neil Diamond's songs, Will Swenson's performance, and the decision to end Act 1 with Sweet Caroline, and then re-sing the song in the curtain call.
What's bad: the book, the sets, the movement / choreography, and the direction.
The book is just plain uninteresting and boring. The psychiatrist visits premise is just dreary and does not have any payoff to me. We knew that these sessions were successful because the older Neil (Mark Jacoby) starts to sing at the very end of the show; it was good to hear Jacoby sing, because his role until then was so dreary that I wondered why he even agreed to be in the show. The relationships with the first two wives are uninteresting. Just awful.
For the older folks, you may remember the TV show 'Hullabaloo'. The costumes and movement / choreography reminded me of that show, which is not a compliment. I considered myself too 'sophisticated' to watch it when I was in my late teens...the current version is no better.
The sets are hideous. Since David Rockwell won a Tony for some of the best scenic design in at least the past 10 years, I was distressed to see what he came up with. They were ugly. For some reason, he had a lot of kitchen ceiling light fixtures descend periodically (probably 30 of them or so); their presence served only to raise the question...'what the hell are they supposed to represent?'.
Lots of bad staging decisions. For example, I agree with a prior poster who complained that Neil did not sing America. I saw the reason -- his parents were immigrants, proud to be Americans -- but it was just not exciting, as it should have been. It seemed too short to build any sort of momentum, and it should have turned the song over to Neil to complete or at least to participate in in a serios way. Act 1 ended with Sweet Caroline, which is such a joyous song that the audience still loved it despite tacky staging and scenery changes.
Re other performances, no one stood out. Robin Hurder was fine, but her role was just uninteresting, i.e., the understanding wife whose understanding ways diminish, as he ignores her. Anyone with a modicum of talent could have played the role.
Despite this. I did actually enjoyed a good amount of the show, because of Swenson and many of the songs. Swenson is a very charismatic stage presence and sang the role beautifully. His role was diminished, however, by the time allotted to the older Neil. Towards the end of the show, he essentially disappeared for awhile, due to the lengthy last shrink scene, and that was a mistake.
At intermission, I said to my wife, who indicated that she loved it that I thought that it was 'atrociously bad'. That is probably not fair, given Swenson and the songs, but I did wonder whether it would be a much more enjoyable entertainment as a tribute show, i.e., Swenson just sings the songs in a one-person concert.
I do not believe this is salvageable, which is a shame. I hope Swenson gets the opportunity to star in a show worthy of his charisma and talent. I expect this to be a mega-flop, if it intends to move quickly to Broadway, as there would not be enough time to re-think it.
I should mention that I once told a friend not to bother seeing the original production of Annie while on previews, because I was convinced it would not be a hit.
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